Wood, raffia, glass beads, pigment, encrustation, nails
Dimensions:
H x W x D: 29.2 x 17.1 x 13.7 cm (11 1/2 x 6 3/4 x 5 3/8 in.)
Type:
Mask
Geography:
Mali
Date:
Early to mid-20th century
Label Text:
This mask, known as satimbe, which literally means "superimposed sister" or "sister of the masks," is of typical rectangular shape with large, trenched out rectangular eyes surmounted by a female with projecting breasts and square shoulders. Typically the female figure has slender, geometric arms projecting from the sides and often bent at the elbows, but this figure's are missing, their location apparent by metal pins. Satimbe appears amongst other masks as part of the funeral ceremony, or dama, of important people. Songs accompany the dancing of the mask and commemorate Yasigi, the "wife-sister" represented by the female figure and known for the discovery of red fibers incorporated in masks and for cultivating the earth.
Description:
Wood face mask of a flat rectangular plane with projecting rectangular shapes framing the pierced eyes, and surmounted by an armless female figure with breasts on a square upper body. The figure's neck is long and thin, and the head relatively small and simply rendered. Glass beads adorn the neck and waist.
Provenance:
Eliot Elisofon, New York, -- to 1973
Exhibition History:
Celebration: A World of Art and Ritual, Renwick Gallery, Washington D.C., March 17, 1982-July 10, 1983
Published References:
Smithsonian Institution. Office of Folklife Programs and Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art. 1982. Celebration: A World of Art and Ritual. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, p. 138, no. 181.
Content Statement:
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Image Requests:
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